U. S. SENATE 


Ford-Newberry Election Contest 


A Synopsis of 

“THE CASE AGAINST TRUMAN H. NEWBERRY,” 


This, short brief is prepared for the 
use of the hurried reader. A full 
brief covering the case at length, 
with references to the printed 
record, and the cases will be fur¬ 
nished to the committee and to 
the senators who may desire it. 


The Issue—Are the Senate Seats for Sale? 


Alfred Lucking, 

Whi. Lucking, 

KDale Pouter, 

Harold tlanlon, 

Counsel for Contestant. 



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U. S. SENATE 


Ford'Newberry Election Contest 


A Synopsis of 

“THE CASE AGAINST TRUMAN H. NEWBERRY.” 

[A more extended brief and abstract of 
testimony will be submitted to the Com¬ 
mittee.] 

The primary was held August 27th, 1918, the election 
November 5th. Mr. Newberry received a plurality over 
Mr. Ford of 4,335 votes, in a total of 438,452 votes. 

On January 6th, 1919, Mr. Ford filed his contest in 
the senate, alleging unlawful expenditures of large sums 
of money to secure the nomination and election of Mr. 
Newberry and illegal expenditures of large sums for 
hiring workers, influencing the press, and the like. 


The Supreme Court Decision. 

Mr. Newberry was convicted under the National Cor¬ 
rupt Practices Act, of the unlawful expenditure of 
moneys to secure a seat in the Senate, by a jury nearly 
all of whom were of his own political party, before a 




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United States judge who had been nominated by Presi¬ 
dent Taft. By a decision of five to four of the judges 
of the Supreme Court, it was held, not that Mr. New¬ 
berry was innocent but that the National Act, regulat¬ 
ing primaries, was unconstitutional and that the proper 
place to present the charges was before the Senate of 
the United States. 


Counter Charges Against Ford Abandoned. 

Counter-charges of large expenditures were made as 
to Mr. Ford’s campaign, but on May 2nd, 1920, these 
were formally withdrawn by Mr. Newberry’s counsel 
when appearing before the committee—and no proofs 
were offered at any time to sustain them. 


Mr. Newberry’s Deplorable Affidavits. 

Mr. Newberry, on August 14th, 1918, filed with the 
secretary of the senate, his sworn statement, in his own 
handwriting, as follows: 

4 4 The campaign for my nomination for United 
States Senator has been voluntarily conducted by 
friends in Michigan. 1 have taken no part in it 
whatever, and no contributions or expenditures 
have been made with my knowledge and consent.” 

Similar sworn statements were filed by Mr. Newberry, 
August 29th, and again October 24th. In the one of 
August 29th, he further added: 

44 1 have read a general public statement of 
Paul King, concerning the expenditures made by 
a voluntary committee of my friends but these 
were made without my knowledge or consent.” 


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All of these statements were proved to be wholly and 
lamentably untrue. Nevertheless, Mr. Newberry re¬ 
mained off the stand and put in no proofs. 


Newberry's Paid Organization. 

Mr. Newberry's campaign was conducted by a com¬ 
mittee headed by Alan Templeton, as general chairman 
(who, on the witness stand declared himself to be but 
a figurehead), by Mr. Paul King, executive manager; 
Charles Floyd, secretary; Frank W. Blair, treasurer; 
six assistant secretaries, publicity managers, Office 
Manager Emery, Assistant Manager H. 0. Turner, an 
office force of fifty or sixty, certain field men, traveling 
the state in different capacities, general workers cov¬ 
ering certain fraternal, labor and farmer societies and 
the like, county chairmen and secretaries of each county, 
and hundreds of hired workers, covering the entire 
state. 

Substantially all of the members of this vast or¬ 
ganization were paid for their services, some by sal¬ 
aries and others by lump sums, except Messrs. Temple¬ 
ton and Blair; and Messrs. King and Floyd, also assert 
that they worked without compensation. 


The Public Scandal. 

Beginning about August 1st, and continuing until af¬ 
ter the primary, a great public outcry resounded over 
the state , charging vast and unlawful expenditures of 
money by Mr. Newberry and his friends. These charges 
were made by other candidates and their friends (not 


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Mr. Ford or his friends); by former Governor Chase 
Osborn, who was a prominent candidate; by Lieutenant 
Governor Luren Dickenson, Merlin Wiley, manager of 
Osborn’s campaign; Candidate William H. Simpson, 
Arthur Vandenberg, the editor of the Grand Rapids 
Daily Herald, and other prominent Republican news¬ 
papers of the state. 


A Sinister Figure. 

Mr. Fred Cody, of New York, appears at every turn 
as the most important [factor in the senatorial cam¬ 
paign, next to Mr. Newberry personally. For years 
he has been a secret professional lobbyist, representing 
a number of the largest public service and other cor¬ 
porations. It was Cody who went to Washington, in 
December, 1917, and tendered the appointment of the 
management of the campaign, at a large salary, to Mr. 
Jay Hayden, Washington correspondent of the Detroit 
News, and who finally took Mr. Hayden to ,New York 
to meet Mr. Newberry, who renewed the offer and dis¬ 
cussed measures for the campaign. Mr. Hayden de¬ 
clined. 

It was Fred Cody who secured Milton Oakman for 
Detroit manager, and who finally picked Paul King 
for state-wide manager and got Mr. Newberry to se¬ 
cure his services. And in a hundred places, Fred Cody 
appears as the closest representative and friend of the 
candidate. 


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Mr. Newberry’s Own Committee. 

It was shown without dispute, that Mr. Newberry 
selected and appointed or approved each member of 
this committee that every act of the committee was 
either directed by Mr. Newberry personally or ex¬ 
pressly approved by him, except the merest details. It 
was shown that he was in constant daily communica¬ 
tion by letter, by telephone, by telegraph, and by mes¬ 
sengers with the committee and the committee managers 
and members. That he received and 4 ‘devoured” daily 
reports of all the activities of' the committee and, in 
turn, he daily sent his directions, suggestions and ad¬ 
vice to the committee and its managers. 


Political Workers Hired. 

Hundreds of workers were employed throughout the 
state, contrary to law, and in nearly all cases they were 
paid in cash, currency being much more elusive. They 
had a complete organization of paid workers in every 
county except Chippewa county, the home of Governor 
Osborn. 


Press Subsidized. 

A gigantic scheme of subsidizing the newspapers of 
the state by placing large and repeated advertisements, 
was carried out. 

Large numbers of the newspapers fell into line ed¬ 
itorially during the advertising campaign and before 
the primary and continued their support to the election. 


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The excuse made by the Newberry apologists for this 
scandalous employment of newspapers was two-fold. 
First, that Mr. Newberry was practically unknown in 
the state, and, second, that it was necessary in order 
to beat Ford. But this last was completely answered 
by Governor Osborn, in his letter at the time to Mr. 
Newberry, when he said: 

“That excuse cannot be honestly made that 
you spent money in excess, because you had be¬ 
gun your reckless campaign long before Ford 
was mentioned and had already transgressed the 
law. Nor can you plead ‘you did not know.’ 
That would prove you to be both an ass and a 
liar, which I choose to think you are not. ” 

Vast Sums Expended. 

At the interview in New York, when Mr. King was 
engaged as manager, Mr. Newberry inquired about the 
cost of a campaign, and Mr. Paul King informed him 
that it would cost at least $50,000. 

The report of the treasurer, made immediately after 
the primary, which was prepared by Emery, King and 
Floyd, showed expenditures totaling $176,568.08 and re¬ 
ceipts totaling $178,856. 

The amounts shown to have been expended on the 
admissions of the contestee’s representatives, include 
not only the total receipts shown in the report as 
$178,856, but about $15,000 subsequently donated by 
Mr. Andrew Green (so he says) for the unpaid debts 
of the committee, plus $5,083 used at the beginning of 
the campaign by Mr. Paul King, chairman. 


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This made a total of substantially $198,000 prac¬ 
tically undisputed. In addition, many thousands of dol¬ 
lars were paid throughout the state to hired workers 
which do not appear in the report. The office pay¬ 
rolls in Detroit were $35,000, and only one check for 
$1,500 appears in the check register to cover this large 
item. These payrolls were paid in cash weekly. When 
asked where the moneys came from for these payrolls, 
and for these workers in the state, the witnesses, like 
Mr. King, the manager, and Mr. Floyd, the secretary, 
and Mr. Turner, the assistant office manager, declared 
they did not know, and passed the responsibility up to 
Mr. Emery, who, when demanded as a witness, finally 
disappeared in Canada. 

The proofs on behalf of the contestant showed positive 
expenditures substantially as follows: 

The check register produced by the 

committee showed checks drawn for $160,000.00 


The office payrolls in Detroit showed 

in addition . 33,500.00 

the fund used at the beginning by 

Paul King, chairman, was. 5,083.00 

The debts of the committee subse¬ 
quently paid by Andrew Green, were 

about . 15,000.00 

For workers throughout the state, in¬ 


cluding $20,000 paid to Milton 
Oakman of Detroit, not shown in 
the report, all according to the 
testimony of Mr. Bennett, the Gov¬ 
ernment expert, at least. 49,477.67 


Total 


$263,060.67 








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Other large sums were expended which are shown 
in general hut not specifically. 

“All the New York bankers,” testified Mr. Lyman 
D. Smith, the New York broker, who said he gave ten 
thousand dollars, “contributed to the campaign fund 
to elect Newberry and defeat Ford.” 

He, no doubt, exaggerated somewhat in saying all, 
but he revealed the general truth. Mysterious sources 
of money, evidences of much larger expenditures ap¬ 
peared here and there throughout the record. 

The proofs of moneys paid to workers all over the 
state touched only the surface—a worker here and 
there and inasmuch as King admitted, on cross-exam¬ 
ination, that the workers were very generally paid, 
the inference is irresistible that great additional sums 
were put into the state. 

But it is not essential to the contestant’s case to 
argue about these much vaster sums. The proven rec¬ 
ord is damning enough to unseat a dozen senators on 
the merits. 


Where the Moneys Came From. 

It is the claim of the contestant that practically all of 
the $198,000 now substantially admitted to have been 
expended by the committee, was contributed by Mr. 
Newberry himself, except a few thousand dollars shown 
to have been gathered from various supporters in De¬ 
troit, immediately after the great public outcry was 
raised in the early part of August. The campaign had 


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been going on for six months and not a cent had been 
contributed by anybody except Mr. John $. Newberry, 
who had contributed up to August 16th, about $84,000; 
and, subsequently, there was contributed in his name 
additional $15,000, making in all, in his name, $99,900. 

After the public criticisms began, they seem to have 
scurried about and secured a number of small con¬ 
tributions from disinterested persons, totaling $6,500, 
and further large sums were contributed in the names 
of other relatives of Mr. Newberry, and one ten thou¬ 
sand dollar item in the name of Lyman D. Smith, a 
broker of New York, and one item of twenty-five hun¬ 
dred dollars, by Mr. Frederick Brooks, of New York. 
It was wholly unnecessary for them to put moneys in 
the names of the other relatives except they were 
frightened by the public outcry and they sought a 
variety of means following August 16th, to camouflage 
the situation. From March 1st to August 16th (just 
ten days before the end of the primary campaign) John 
S. Newberry had apparently furnished all of the money 
and according to his testimony, was prepared to fur¬ 
nish any amount up to two hundred thousand 
dollars or more. But the public outcry was so great 
against the ‘boodle” campaign that they proceeded to 
get contributions in the names of other relatives. 
The story of all these important contributions, told by 
the contributors themselves, who were called to the 
stand by the contestant—none of them by Mr. New¬ 
berry—is laughable in the extreme. 

Mr, John S, Newberry’s story is typical and will il¬ 
lustrate the pitiful efforts made to have people believe 
that Mr. Truman Newberry was not financing the cam- 


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paign. In merest outline, Mr. John S. Newberry testi¬ 
fied that he was a younger brother of Mr. Truman New¬ 
berry, and that they had always had their accounts and 
dealings and offices together; that they had one com¬ 
mon, financial secretary, Fred Smith, who held powers 
of attorney from both of them to check against their 
accounts; that they had their business transactions to¬ 
gether and that his brother, Truman, had full authority 
to make investments for him and, in fact, conducted 
all his business for him from the time their father 
died. John testified that no person asked him to con¬ 
tribute to the campaign, that he never talked with his 
brother about it, or to any member of the committee, 
or to anybody else. He said he saw in the newspapers 
that his brother was thinking of running but that he did 
not otherwise know he was going to run. He was in 
Detroit up to the first of April, 1918, after which he 
went to Chicago in connection with some other serv¬ 
ices; that when he was leaving Detroit, he told Mr. 
Fred Smith, their common, joint financial secretary, 
that if his brother ran for senator, he, John, wished to 
finance the campaign. Outside of that single instruc¬ 
tion, he never had anything further to do with it. He, 
in fact, never talked with any other living soul about 
it; he did not know except from the newspapers how 
much had been taken from his account to finance the 
campaign; he did not know whether the committee 
would need any money at all, he had never been in¬ 
formed that they would need any money, he simply as¬ 
sumed that every campaign committee would need 
money; he did not know how much, he placed no limita¬ 
tions on the amount, he did not know except for the 
newspapers how much they already had used of his 
funds, he never took any steps to find out, he never 


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asked for any account, he never took any steps to see 
that the money was not wasted or what it was expended 
for. 

The testimony of other alleged contributors , Mr. A. 
Victor Barnes and Mr. Lyman D. Smith, both of whom 
were in the east and knew nothing of the campaign, 
is of the same type. They were in the east and nobody 
asked them to contribute, they merely guessed that 
money would he needed, they had no conversation with 
anybody about it, did not know that moneys were 
needed, and took no steps to see how the moneys were 
expended. They had no conversations with the candi¬ 
date about it, or with any of his representatives. 

Mr. Truman Newberry the Real Financier. 

Mr. Fred Smith, the confidential, financial secretary, 
was subpoenaed by the contestant, and put upon the 
witness stand. He let the cat out of the bag so far as 
the candidate was concerned. He testified that the ac¬ 
counts of the Newberry estate and of Truman H. New¬ 
berry and John S. Newberry, and some other members 
of the family, were all kept in one office in Detroit, and 
under his (Smith’s) control, and subject to his checks, 
and that funds were from time to time transferred 
from one to the other. That this senatorial campaign 
fund was made up from checks drawn against the ac¬ 
count of John S. Newberry, but that John S. Newberry’s 
account, to meet the campaign expenses, was replen¬ 
ished from time to time with funds from the account 
of Truman H. Newberry and other members of the 
family. That the drafts upon the exchequer grew to 
be so large as to drain the amounts on hand and that 


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on the 28th day of July, 1918, Mr. Truman Newberry 
telephoned from New York to him, Smith, about the 
condition of the funds and the amounts that were being 
used for the campaign and complained that the ex¬ 
penditures were running so heavy as to drain the sev¬ 
eral amounts in the several funds and demanding to 
know when the principal expenditures in connection 
with the campaign would cease and that lie, Smith, in¬ 
formed him that the principal sources of expenditures 
would be cut off at the time of the primary but that 
he made a mistake as to dates, which he undertook to 
correct on the same day, by sending a telegram. 

* 

Fortunately, this telegram had been rescued from 
the telegraph office. The possession of this telegram 
forced from Mr. Smith the admissions as to Mr. New¬ 
berry’s interest in the entire campaign funds referred 
to above. It read as follows: 

“Detroit, Michigan, July 28, 1918. 
Mr. Truman H. Newberry, 

280 Broadway, 

New York. 

I misinformed you this morning the date of 
close of regular expenses. I should have said 
August twenty-seventh. The circular work, ad¬ 
vertising, clerical help, postage and all regular 
overhead expenses will naturally continue until 
primary. Have written. 

(Signed) Fred P. Smith.” 

Contrast this with Mr. Newberry’s oaths. 


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♦ 


The Treasurer’s Mystifying Report. 

A report of receipts and expenditures by the treas¬ 
urer was made and tiled under the state law directly 
after the primary. The treasurer said he knew nothing 
about it personally. He was assured that it was cor¬ 
rect and signed it. The manager of the campaign, Mr. 
Paul King, declared on the wfitness stand it was “the 
best report ever made.” But when asked to find items 
in it he said he did not make it and did not know how 
to find them. 

It contained no dates and no definite items except 
payments to newspapers and the like, those things which 
they were perfectly willing should be known. 

For instance, no part of the $5,784.25 spent upon the 
movie film, for which Mr. Newberry personally posed 
on a wooden imitation battleship, was in this report. 

No one could find the immense sums paid to political 
tvorkers although hundreds of such sums were proved 
on the witness stand at Grand Rapids, by the recipi¬ 
ents and were not denied. The law of Michigan re¬ 
quired an itemized statement of payments. The report 
was obviously made to hide and deceive. Two separate 
experts, put upon the stand at different times, one in 
Grand Rapids and one in Washington, were unable 
to find the important payments. No excuse or 
reason for such a hodge-podge of figures was offered. 
Floyd himself admitted that it would have been very 
simple to have kept records of receipts and disburse¬ 
ments. 


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False Returns. 

Many of the subordinate members of the organiza¬ 
tion, who handled considerable sums in various parts of 
the state testified at Grand Rapids that they had made 
returns by directions of the managers, Floyd and oth¬ 
ers, covering only a small part of the moneys paid to 
them in the campaign. These returns formed the basis 
for the “treasurer’s report.” 


Fraudulent Books. 

The “check register” was produced and declared by 
both counsel for Mr. Newberry to be the complete 
record of all payments by the committee. In addition 
to the check register, the Detroit office payrolls were 
produced and less than one-third of the bank checks 
and in addition thereto, the report of the treasurer. 
These were all the records that were produced tending 
in any way to throw any light upon the expenditures 
of the committee. 

These books (the check register and payrolls) were 
demonstrated to be fraudulent, incomplete, self-con¬ 
tradictory and made to order at the end of the cam¬ 
paign to serve a purpose—not books of original entry 
at all. All of the books, records and documents of 
original entries (except about 500 checks out of a total 
of 1827) were destroyed by committee agents at the 
time of the making up of these alleged books. The 
hooks produced contained no entries of the thousands 
paid to hundreds of workers throughout the state . No 


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N. 

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entries in any books or memorandums were produced of 
these payments out in the state, and no receipts and no 
vouchers. Nobody on the witness stand could account 
for the destruction of the original books and papers. 
All responsibility was passed on to the disappearing 
witness, Emery. 

This check register, which both the counsel for the 
contestee vouched for as complete, showed checks 
drawn from March 6th to May 25th, 1918, $5,427.71, 
while the bank record of withdrawals on the same ac¬ 
count showed for the same time $20,708.92. No ex¬ 
planation was ever tendered for this. 

This “complete” check register failed to show any 
payments of the office payrolls except one check for 
$1,500—while the payrolls were paid every week in 
cash and amounted to $35,000. King and Floyd and 
others were asked where the money came from to meet 
these payrolls, and they disclaimed all knowledge and 
passed the responsibility on to the disappearing wit¬ 
ness. 

This “complete” check register showed no moneys 
drawn for the hundreds of workers who were employed 
in all (but one) of the counties of the state. When 
asked to explain where the moneys came from to pay 
these workers, or to find any reference to these pay¬ 
ments in the books, the manager of the campaign, the 
secretary of the campaign, the assistant office manager 
and others all disclaimed any knowledge and shoved 
the responsibility on to Mr. Emery, the disappearing 
witness. 


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Fraudulent Checks. 

This “complete” check register showed that on the 
last day before the treasurer's report, four checks were 
drawn, two of them for $24,000 to the order of B. F. 
Emery (the disappearing witness) and two for $8,000 
to Charles Floyd, the secretary. When the attention 
of Mr. King and Mr. Floyd was called to these checks, 
it was claimed that they were mere bookkeeping en¬ 
tries, “reconciling entries” on the hooks. And even 
when it was pointed out to them that these checks were 
actually cashed, at the bank, and the moneys withdrawn, 
it was still persisted that they were mere “bookkeep¬ 
ing entries.” Floyd declared that he endorsed the 
two checks payable to his order and left them with the 
committee, but it was finally demonstrated that the 
moneys were actually drawn out of the bank on these 
checks. Neither Floyd nor King nor any other witness 
could account for these withdrawals or for these checks. 
All of the responsibility was passed on to Emery, the 
disappearing witness. Asked whether the committee 
owed anything to Mr. Emery, Mr. Floyd said not that 
he knew of, and no amount of questioning would bring 
forth any explanation whatever of these extraordinary 
transactions. Accordingly, we called Mr. Howard C. 
Beck, city auditor of Baltimore City, to examine the 
books and vouchers, that is all that were produced, and 
he testified that the moneys were actually drawn upon 
these checks, that they were not bookkeeping entries, 
and that deposits made about the same time were drawn 
from other sources entirely, were drawn from contribu¬ 
tions entered in the treasurer's report and from a cer¬ 
tain ten-thousand-dollar item apparently subscribed 
at the same time by Mr. John S. Newberry. 




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$21,000 in a Paper Sack. 

Following all this, the final witness, Mr. Fred P. 
Smith, the financial secretary of the Newherrys, ad¬ 
mitted that at that time (first week in September) 
somebody had brought to him a paper sack containing 
$21,000 in currency, and delivered it to him. No hint 
of this had ever before been given at any time or place 
in the proceedings. Asked if this was part of the 
$99,900 contributed by Mr. John Newberry, he said no, 
it must have been that he contributed more money 
than that, and, at least, $120,000. Asked to give a 
statement of all moneys advanced and returned he said 
he could not do it because the boohs of the Newberrys 
had been stolen, that their books of account, in which 
he kept track of the contributions had been stored in a 
barn, and when he was subpoenaed and went to get the 
books, papers and vouchers he found the doors open and 
the papers all gone. Asked what he did with the 
$21,000, he thought it must have been deposited in the 
National Bank of Commerce in Detroit to the credit of 
John S. Newberry. The contestant’s counsel asked to 
have this account examined, but this request was de¬ 
nied. 


The Secret Bank Vault, 

The office manager and his assistant kept a large box 
in a safety vault where they kept currency which was 
used for the purposes of the committee. The general 
manager of the campaign and the secretary testified 
that they knew nothing about this, but the fact remains 
that under their directions, large sums were paid out 


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in currency to workers all over the state and for office 
payrolls and it is quite incredible that they did not 
know of the bank vault. It was far simpler to draw 
checks from day to day and hour to hour than to go 
into the basement vaults of the bank and go through all 
of the trouble of getting currency. This was not done 
without a purpose. 


A Distressing Exhibition. 

All of the witnesses called by the contestant before 
the committee (except one, the bookkeeping expert) 
were members of the Newberry organization—all hos¬ 
tile witnesses, all concerned in making the best show¬ 
ing possible for Mr. Newberry. The evidence showed 
a most distressing exhibition of fraud in the contribu¬ 
tions, fraud in the expenditures, fraud in the records, 
concealment of illegal payments, destruction of books, 
papers and vouchers, manufacture of false books and 
false returns by many of the county agents in which 
were suppressed the greater part of the moneys handled 
by them. All of the chief contributors to the campaign 
fund presented pitiful spectacles, trying to show volun¬ 
tary contributions to a campaign fund that they knew 
nothing about, contributions they were not asked to make 
and for which they took no acknowledgments and for 
which they asked no accounting. 


The Key to All This Fraudulent Conduct. 

In order to understand this extraordinary record of 
concealment, fraud, fabrication of books, destruction of 
original books, records, vouchers and correspondence, 


19 


concealment of payments in currency and the juggling 
of funds, the sudden activity ten days before the pri¬ 
mary to get contributions into other names and the mis¬ 
informing, confusing “treasurer’s report”; it is neces¬ 
sary to know and keep in mind three things: 

First. That the law of Michigan absolutely 
prohibited the hiring of workers at and before 
the primary. 

Second. That the authors of this campaign 
made themselves believe or they pretended to be¬ 
lieve that they could spend enormous sums for 
certain purposes if the candidate himself did not 
participate. 

Tjiird. That a tremendous outcry about the 
“barrel campaign” of the Newberry forces was 
raised all over the state about three weeks before 
the primary by friends of Governor Osborn and 

Candidate Simpson. 

* • 

In other words, the hey to the criminal concealment, 
destruction of books, papers and records, manufacture 
of new books and general chicanery does not consist in 
the mere desire to hide and conceal a large part of the 
expenditures. This purpose was only secondary. The 
main purpose was to conceal two things, the criminal 
and unlawful hiring of workers all over the state and 
the personal participation of Mr. Newberry himself 
and his estate interests in the contributions and ex¬ 
penditures. 


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Knowledge and Participation of Mr. Newberry in the 
Campaign. 

The only defense vouchsafed during this two and one- 
half years of delay, has been the repeated statements 
that Mr. Newberry personally had nothing to do with 
the illegalities and iniquities. 

But this defense is shattered by the simple indis¬ 
putable facts. 

He was advised by King, the campaign manager, 
when he was being engaged by him, that the campaign 
would cost at least $50,000. Mr. Newberry, as shown 
by the evidence, and by hundreds of letters and tele¬ 
grams, stands revealed as the prime mover in all the 
work, the dark figure in the background, pulling all 
of the strings and directing every step. Mr. Newberry 
stayed in New York but he kept the wires hot. Every¬ 
thing was run with military precision. Each day (and 
often many times a day) complete written report of 
each and every move was forwarded to him and, in 
turn, he issued his instructions and advice and sugges¬ 
tions. He watched even the details. For example, he 
ordered the committee stenographers to be more care¬ 
ful in their work because the enclosures did not fit the 
envelopes, and, therefore, it was necessary to take all 
of the stamps off of the envelopes and re-write the en¬ 
velopes. The alleged contributors paid no attention 
whatever to the expenditures, but Mr. Newberry him¬ 
self was on the job. He demanded of his agent to know 
when the expenses would be reduced and he was in¬ 
formed and then informed again. He complained that 


21 


all of the various funds of himself and the other New¬ 
berry heirs were being drawn out to meet this campaign 
fund and was impatient for the end to be reached. Thus 
testifies his own, private, confidential, financial secre¬ 
tary, Mr. Fred Smith. 

Throughout his correspondence with Paul King, the 
manager, it is shown in scores of ways that Mr. New¬ 
berry knew the campaign was costing large sums. This 
was pressed upon Mr. King, the manager, in various 
ways on cross-examination, that Mr. Newberry must 
have known of the large expenditures, until finally Mr. 
King declared “why, of course, he knew, every sane 
man would know that large sums of money were being 
expended.” And yet, Mr. Truman H. Newberry, after 
he had been openly charged in the public press of 
Michigan, filed his oaths in the United States Senate 
for the information of the Senate and of the public of 
the United States, in which he swore that no con¬ 
tributions to his campaign and no expenditures in his 
campaign had been made with his knowledge or consent, 
and that he had nothing whatever to do with the cam¬ 
paign. 


No Evidence by the Contestee. 

It is vitally significant that Mr. Newberry offered no 
evidence. Charged with criminal offenses against the 
law, with the most foul misrepresentations under oath, 
he offers no explanations, no proofs. He affords no aid 
whatever to the committee investigating this contest. 
It is true that Mr. King went upon the stand at Grand 
Rapids and produced some illuminating correspon¬ 
dence. 


22 


All of the evidence given by the contestant (except 
an expert accountant) was dragged from members of 
the Newberry organization who were placed upon the 
witness stand against their will. 

The defense was striking for its omissions and for 
its negative attitude and it offered no aid to the com¬ 
mittee whatsoever. 

Mr. Newberry himself charged with all these heinous 
offenses against law and good morals is conspicuous 
by^ his absence from the witness stand. 

His factotum, Mr. Cody, the mysterious New York 
lobbyist, whose silent figure is seen in every important 
move from the engagement of the managers of the 
campaign down, never appears. 

Milton Oakman, the first manager of the campaign 
and at all times manager of Wayne county (Detroit), 
who at first supported Osborn and then switched to 
Newberry, declaring to Governor Osborn that he could 
not afford to reject their offers, is also conspicuous for 
his absence. 

Richard Fletcher, one of the most active lieutenants 
and who declared that the campaign cost nearly $800,000 
and that he knew what he was talking about; appears 
not at all before the committee. 

B. F. Emery, the office manager, who is made “the 
goat” for all of the disappearing of the books, burned 
records, mysterious currency transactions, large cash 
withdrawals, refused to submit himself for examination 
as to his ability to testify, and disappeared into Canada. 


« r f 

< 


23 


None of the “field managers” is called by Mr. New¬ 
berry. 

None of the 80-odd county chairmen or secretaries, 
none of the hundreds of hired workers, none of the 
hired orators, or the mere “talkers,” who had nothing 
to do but talk Newberry and draw their salaries, none 
of the fraternal society officers or labor leaders, who 
were hired. 

The damning silence of the defense! 


The Michigan Laws. 

It is not intended in this memorandum to indulge in 
any extended citation of the law. There are three 
Michigan statutes to be considered: 

(1st) The statute providing for the nomina¬ 
tion and election of United States senators. 

(2nd) The Act governing the primaries. 

(3rd) The Corrupt Practices Act, so called, 
limiting expenses of nomination and election. 

The first one provides: 

(1) “United States senators shall be nomi¬ 
nated and elected in the same manner as near as 
may be as the governor is nominated and elected; 
and all the provisions of law relating to the 
nomination and election of governor, so far as 
the same are applicable, shall control in the nom¬ 
ination and election of United States senators.” 

Sec. 2, Act 156, Public Acts 1915, being Sec. 

228, Comp. Laws of 1915. 


24 


(2) The Primary Law of Michigan under which this 
primary was held is very long. It was originally Act 
281 of Public Acts of 1909, and as amended consists of 
56 sections. It will be necessary here to refer only to 
two sections, namely, Sections 45 and 48, being Sections 
3554 and 3557 of the Compiled Laws of 1915. 

Section 45 provides: 

4 ‘Every person, who, directly or indirectly by 
himself or by any other person in his behalf, 
gives or lends or promises any money or valu¬ 
able consideration * * * to or for any person 
in order to induce or have such person * * * 
support or oppose any candidate * * *; every 
person who receives, agrees or contracts for any 
money or valuable consideration, office or em¬ 
ployment * * * for voting or for inducing or 
undertaking to induce any other person to vote 
in a particular manner * * * or on account of 
doing or agreeing to do any campaign work, 
electioneering, soliciting votes for such candi¬ 
dates on primary day or prior thereto * * * it 
being the intent of this clause to prohibit the pre¬ 
vailing practice of candidates hiring with money 
and promises of positions, etc., workers on pri¬ 
mary day and prior thereto * * * shall be 

deemed guilty of misdemeanor * * * and upon 
conviction shall be punished with a fine not ex¬ 
ceeding $500 or by imprisonment, not more than 
six months, or both.” 

Section 48 of the same Act provides: 

“It shall be unlaw fid for any other person to 
do or perform for or on behalf of any such can¬ 
didate or to help or injure the candidacy of any 
candidate, any of the acts or things which it is 
by this act made unlawful for such candidate to 

dor 


25 


(3) The Act limiting nomination and election ex¬ 
penses is Act 109 of the Public Acts of 1913, consisting 
of 21 sections, being sections 3828 to 3848 of the Com¬ 
piled Laws of 1915. This Act limits nominating-election 
expenses of candidates to one-half of one year’s salary. 
It is too long to quote in full. The true construction 
thereof is in dispute, the contestee and his counsel 
claiming that it was only intended to prevent the candi¬ 
date expending his own money beyond a certain sum, 
but that his friends could spend unlimited sums without 
incurring the ban of the law. We insist that the correct 
interpretation of the entire Act forbids the expenditure 
of more than the amount named, either by the candidate 
or by his committee, or others acting in his behalf,. If 
the ban of the statute could be so easily wiped out as 
by the palpable subterfuge adopted in this case, then 
the statute operates only to penalize men of honor who 
would not resort to so low a trick. 

Section 1 provides: 

“No sums of money shall be paid and no ex¬ 
penses authorized or incurred by and on behalf 
of any candidate to be paid by him in order 
to secure or aid in securing his nomination to 
any public office in excess of twenty-five per cent 
of one year’s compensation of the office.” 

Further down, in the same section, it provides as 
follows: 

“No sums of money shall be paid and no ex¬ 
penses authorized or incurred by or on behalf 
of any candidate who has received the nomina¬ 
tion to any public office, in excess of twenty-five 
per cent of a year’s salary.” * * * 


26 


Section 2 provides that every committee should ap¬ 
point a treasurer and that no money should be expend¬ 
ed except through him. 

Section 3 provides that no money shall be expended 
except for certain lawful expenses as follows: 
Divided into eleven heads, namelly, first, travleing 
expenses, printing, advertising, postage, freight, tele¬ 
graph, public messenger services; second, dissem¬ 
ination of printed information; third, political meet¬ 
ings; fourth, rent of offices; fifth, clerks, type¬ 
writers, stenographers, janitors and messengers; sixth, 
challengers, allowed by law; seven, public speakers and 
musicians; eighth, copying election registers and poll 
lists and investigating the right to vote of the persons 
listed; ninth, making canvasses; tenth, conveying dis¬ 
abled voters to and from the polls; eleventh, employing 
attorneys licensed to practice and the necessary ex¬ 
penses of such counsel. 

Section 4 provides that every candidate and treasurer 
of a political committee shall make a full, true and de¬ 
tailed account of all receipts and expenses and unpaid 
debts and obligations. 

Section 11 prohibits any person from paying any 
expenses or making any payments excepts to a candi¬ 
date or political committee. 

Section 12 provides that there shall be no receipts 
except in the true name of the donor. 

Section 13 provides that no money shall be expended 
from any anonymous source. Section 13 also provides 
imprisonment for any violation of the Act. 


27 


The Applicable Law. 

We contend that the true interpretation of this last 
Act forbids expenditures, beyond the amounts named, 
by the candidate or by any political committee in his 
behalf and that those expenditures must be made for 
the lawful purposes stated in Section 3. 

But in view of the provisions of the Primary Act, 
above quoted, it is not necessary to go into any dis¬ 
cussion about the law of Michigan, under the facts in 
this case. 

The law of Michigan absolutely and in the strongest 
possible terms forbids the expenditure of any moneys 
for the hiring of political workers at or before the pri¬ 
mary. 

\ 

It not only declares that the candidate shall not 
do it but that it shall be unlawful for any person to do 
it. 


That provision of the law (which is re-enacted in 
substance in the Corrupt Practices Act, by Section 3), 
was violated from the very beginning of the campaign 
to its end by Mr. Newberry and his committee. They 
hired hundreds of workers to perform political serv¬ 
ices and to procure the votes for Mr. Newberry in every 
part of the state. 

Knowing that this was denounced by the law and made 
criminal, the committee members proceeded to hide their 
transactions as far as it teas possible to do. This is 
why there were no entries upon their books or a report 
of these transactions. This is why they hid their work- 


28 


ings under the cloak of secret payments in currency. 
This is why they maintained the bank vault. This is 
why they did not use bank checks for these payments. 
This is why their books were juggled. This is why 
their hooks were re-written. This is why their original 
vouchers, books and documents were destroyed. 

Section 45 of the Primary Act, supra, in explicit 
words, declared that the practice of hiring political work¬ 
ers, which has prevailed in the past, was thereby pro¬ 
hibited. Section 48 made it plain that no person could 
do this hiring whether it was the candidate or anybody 
else, and Section 3 of the Corrupt Practices Act, limiting 
the amount of the expenditures, declares that neither the 
candidate nor the treasurer of the political committee 
shall expend any money except for certain specified 
purposes, among which the hiring of political workers 
to influence the votes is definitely excluded. 

So Also the Common Law. 

Likewise by the common law , the hiring of men in 
the community to work for the candidate, is immoral, 
corrupting and against public policy. 

In this case, agents of the candidate went into nearly 
every county and hired influential office holders and ex¬ 
office holders, prosecuting attorneys, judges of probate, 
sheriffs, clerks and others to work for Mr. Newberry, 
who were to direct their efforts along many different 
lines to promote his candidacy. It is unnecessary to 
enter into these details. The hiring of these influential 
men involved the turning over of the support and votes 
of their friends and relations. The law penetrates the 


29 


thin disguise of its being a payment for services in the 
ordinary acceptation of the term and denounces it as a 
corrupting of the electorate. No statute is necessary. 
Common law and public policy forbade the practices 
which were so extensively carried out and which per¬ 
meated the whole state. 

Stirtcm v. Blathen, 51 L. R. A. ( N . S.), 623, 
626. 

U. S. Senate Election Cases, Case of Mr. Cald¬ 
well, of Kansas, page 430. 

A Foul Record Indeed. 

The use of vast sums of monev to win the election 
admitted. 

Other large sums proved. 

Hundreds and hundreds of workers hired all over the 
state, directly in violation of law, both the written 
Statutes of Michigan and the Common Law. 

Payments to these workers concealed and never re¬ 
ported. 

The entire Press subsidized by huge advertising. 

False returns by county agents, under instructions 
from the managers, showing but a small part of their 
expenditures of the moneys handled by them. 

False books of account, manufactured after the con¬ 
clusion of the primary. 


30 


The destruction of original books, records and vouch¬ 
ers. 

Concealment of large numbers of expenditures by 
currency transactions, and at the same time pretend¬ 
ing that their check register covered everything. 

A doctored treasurer’s report, containing no dates 
and so shaped that even experts could make neither 
head nor tail of it. 

The open contributions substantially all made by the 
Newberry family, even on their face, the evidence con¬ 
vincing any fair mind that practically all of it was the 
money of Truman Newberry himself. 

The books of the Newberry estate and of the individ¬ 
ual accounts, stolen or disappearing, when needed. 

The secret bank vault, with its currency transactions, 
placed beyond the possibility of being traced. 

The fraudulent checks for large sums at the conclu¬ 
sion of the campaign, and the attempts to explain them 
as book entries only, and the final admission of carry¬ 
ing of $21,000 in a paper sack to be returned to the 
account of John S. Newberry and the refusal to allow 
the examination of their bank accounts. 

Finally, the frightfully false oaths submitted to the 
senate and the country by Mr. Newberry, that he had 
taken no part whatever in the campaign and that no 
money was received or expended with his knowledge or 
consent. 


✓ 


31 


Surely this is a deplorable and revolting record, in¬ 
tensified by the absence of any proofs or explanations 
on the part of the contestee. v. 


The Issue: Are the Senate Seats for Sale? 

If this record of unlawful expenditures and infamous 
practices proved and described in the outline above, are 
condoned and approved, by keeping Mr. Newberry in 
the seat, then indeed has it been made manifest that 
seats in the United States Senate are for sale to the 
highest bidder. They may as well be auctioned off. 

Not simply is the poor man barred, but every honest 
man also, no matter how rich he may be and no matter 
how rich his friends may be. The honorable man may 
have the wealth of Croesus but he cannot stoop to such 
practices as are proven in this case. 

Alfred Lucking, 

William Lucking, 

Dale Souter, 

Harold Hanlon, 

Counsel for Contestant . 




















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